Court approves US$2.2bn Elpida sale

Bloomberg

Fri, Mar 01, 2013 - Page 13

Elpida Memory Inc, the Japanese chipmaker in bankruptcy protection, has won Tokyo District Court approval for a ￥200 billion (US$2.2 billion) sale to Micron Technology Inc, clearing the last major hurdle in the takeover.

The required majority of creditors backed the plan, according to a statement from the trustees of the Tokyo-based company. The deadline for voting was Tuesday.

The Tokyo District Court in October last year picked Boise, Idaho-based Micron as the preferred bidder over a rival plan put forward by some bondholders.

Buying Elpida will about double Micron’s share of the global market for DRAM, the most widely used memory chips in personal computers, and bolster its efforts to compete with Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc.

Elpida filed for bankruptcy in February last year and delisted a month later after struggling with slowing PC sales and a strong yen.

Global DRAM revenue fell 13 percent in the third quarter of last year to US$6.6 billion, according to the latest data compiled by Bloomberg Industries. Demand dropped as users shunned PCs for mobile devices such as Apple Inc’s iPad, which use different types of chips.